In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter, war spreading, families dying, the world in danger, I walk the rocky hillside, sowing
clover. —Wendell Berry

Sigrdrifa's Prayer

Hail to the Day / Hail to Day’s Sons / Hail to the Night and her Daughters / With loving eyes look upon us here / And bring victory to those who have gathered / Hail to the gods / Hail to the goddesses / Hail to the mighty, fecund Earth / Eloquence and native wit bestow on us / And healing hands while we live

Words to Consider

"And the Bastard grant us, in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain's peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word. In darkness, understanding." -- Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious-makes you so sick at heart-that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" - Mario Savio

"They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. That is too much, even for a joke. ... Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder... And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles." —Eugene Victor Debs

i do it for the joy it brings / because i am a joyful girl / because the world owes me nothing / and we owe each other the world / i do it because it's the least i can do / i do it because i learned it from you / i do it just because i want to / because I want to —"Joyful Girl", Ani DiFranco

"Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life."
- Elizabeth Goudge, author of The Joy of the Snow

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Saturday, 01 January 2011

Happy New Year from Martin the Pig (and me)

This is Martin the Pig, in his Yule finery:

(He has no Hogmanay finery; it was all I could do to finish this. Maybe by next year . . . )

He is a pleasantly chunky 6"x4.5", constructed of pink velveteen purchased for a quarter from the Kiwanis Thrift Store in Black Mountain. He's made from a vintage pattern, Circus Stars to Sew by Joan Russell; I ordered the original from Woman's Day in the late 60s/early 70s, and I also have another copy I bought on eBay. (Why? Because I stupidly cut up the original instead of tracing the pieces—I was considerably younger and more ignorant then, not to mention having much more faith in my ability not to lose small pieces of paper. I did the same with another Joan Russell/Woman's Day pattern, called A Toyfull Little Santa, but I have been unable to find another copy anywhere. If anyone has one they would either like to sell, or like to sell a copy of . . . )

His festive wreath is nothing but a piece of pink bias tape from the odds-and-ends bag with a snap on the ends so it's removable. The leaves are cut from a scrap of wool felt, and the beads are some I had in a little box, waiting to be used. I had intended to make the leaves from some vintage holly-leaf-shaped sequins I have, but they stuck out oddly and the effect wasn't at all what I'd intended, so they have gone back into the box for another day. I spent the better part of an afternoon cutting out bits of felt, and another evening sewing them on (which is more fiddly than you'd expect; on the other hand, I didn't feel like doing much of anything anyway other than blowing my nose and sneezing, and I was tired of reading, believe it or not, and tired of sleeping).

Here he is without any clothing:

And because someone asked me: his tail is wired; it's a piece of pipe cleaner rolled in a scrap of velveteen and sewed on, then curled over a pencil. His eyes are beads. His ears aren't wired: the pattern showed them just straight out from his head, but that made him look like he was attempting (unsuccessfully) to take off, so I ran a thread around the outside (after I'd sewed them on) and scrunched them until I liked the way they looked. His ear linings are cut from a piece of fabric I just liked and bought only a quarter yard of, then got it home and realized it was perfect for this. Maybe I'll make him a ruff one of these days; I probably have a piece of vintage cotton rickrack (which is SO much nicer to use than that nasty polyester stuff they make now) lurking about somewhere . . .